All you want to do is settle down on the porcelain throne to enjoy some quality time taking your daily dump and getting a nice little derriere massage from your built-in pulsating-spray bidet. But instead of blessed relief and refreshment, your butt cheeks (and perhaps more!) get fried in a fiery hell that erupts from your trusted toilet.
A fiery hell? What gives?
That's what customers are asking Toto Ltd., the Japanese toilet maker, after the Tokyo-based company discovered that 180,000 bidet toilets it manufactured have the unintended potential to burst into flames. Toto is providing free repairs to the incendiary crappers, which apparently have a wiring problem that can cause a blaze if a spark ignites. The offending product is not sold outside Japan, so there may be a handful of Japanese folks walking funny lately, and not because their kimonos are too tight.
As I sipped my afternoon mug of tea and reviewed the potential hazards of owning high-tech hygiene devices, I had to wonder whether the luxury of having an electronic toilet with a pulsating massage spray -- which, to operate properly, seems to require voltage sufficient to cook a brisket -- is worth the risk of possibly making one's rear-end itself into a rump roast. Where are the days of simpler pleasures, like simply taking a dipper of fresh spring water and splashing one's rear with it to brace and freshen-up the privates after emptying bowels and bladder?
I don't like the idea of hidden sprays of vibrating H2O (Toto has a feature called the "Tornado Wash") rocketing up from under the seat and hitting potentially sensitive tissues -- never mind the idea that the whole damn thing could burst into flames and barbeque my ass.
For those who insist on the finest in high-tech butt-cleaning and massaging mechanisms in their bathroom fixtures, I say, "Caveat emptor." You might want to use a flame-retardant toilet seat cover before settling down for a dump-n-bidet session!
